COUSTAUSSA
Sandrine, Marianne, Suzanne and Lucie were sitting at the table in the kitchen. While the sisters talked, Suzanne had raided Monsieur Vidal’s cellar. Geneviève had cycled up from Rennes-les-Bains to let Sandrine know Raoul had arrived safely in Belcaire, and stayed to help Liesl – under precise orders from Marieta – prepare a scratch meal.
Two hours later and the table was covered in empty plates and dishes, wine bottles. Suzanne sat by the cold fireplace, smoking. Lucie was curled up in an armchair like a cat, taking quick, sharp puffs of a cigarette and tapping the ash into the ashtray. Geneviève and Liesl were at the sink washing up and Marieta had gone to lie down.
The atmosphere had been convivial and sociable until Sandrine had told Marianne what Monsieur Baillard was planning. She hadn’t shared with her all the information about the Codex, imagining what her reaction might be, but had confined her explanation to the plan itself.
Even so, the mood changed.
‘It’s ridiculous,’ Marianne said again.
Sandrine glanced at the clock. ‘If all goes according to plan, by this time tomorrow Raoul will have set the trap.’ She frowned. ‘Then we’ll see.’
Marianne threw her hands in the air. ‘Suppose it does all go “according to plan”, as you put it. And they – whoever they are – fall for this ruse of Monsieur Baillard’s. Then what? If Authié is pursuing you and Raoul because of this, then he’s going to come looking for you. Even if it’s someone else, with German money behind them, you and Raoul are making yourselves sitting targets. You’re playing with fire.’
Sandrine sighed. ‘We’ve been through this. All we’re doing is attempting to buy Monsieur Baillard more time to find the real Codex and also to deflect attention away from us. As soon as Monsieur Saurat in Toulouse confirms—’
‘If they find the forgery, if it’s taken to him,’ Marianne interrupted. ‘If.’
‘All right, if,’ Sandrine said, throwing a look at her sister. She wished Marianne would stop putting so many obstacles in the way. She was terrified enough as it was without her pointing out all the things that could go wrong.
‘When they – Authié – do find out it’s a fake, there’s no reason for them to think I was involved in the deception,’ Sandrine said firmly. ‘I’ll have passed on information in good faith, that’s the point. Just women’s chattering.’ She paused. ‘Can’t you see, Marianne, it’s the only way to get Authié to leave us alone. The problem’s not going to solve itself of its own accord.’
‘You are being naïve,’ Marianne said, her voice hard with frustration. ‘All of you.’
Geneviève turned around from the sink. ‘Monsieur Baillard won’t let anything happen to Sandrine,’ she said.
‘In the same way he didn’t let anything happen to Antoine Déjean?’ Marianne snapped.
Geneviève flushed.
‘I’m sorry,’ Marianne said quickly. ‘That was uncalled for. I’m just on edge.’
‘Antoine didn’t follow Monsieur Baillard’s instructions closely enough,’ Geneviève said quietly. ‘But Sandrine will. Raoul will.’
Marianne said nothing for a moment. She glanced at Suzanne, then started talking again.
‘I know you all think I’m making too much fuss. But I think it’s absurd that you’re deliberately putting yourselves in danger for something like this . . . this fantasy. There’s real work to be done, real people suffering every day.’
She stopped, the fight suddenly going out of her voice. Liesl too now turned around and looked at Marianne. An uncomfortable stalemate settled like a cloud over the kitchen. Suzanne reached across and squeezed Marianne’s hand, then sat back. Geneviève was watching Sandrine. Only Lucie, having excused herself to go to the bathroom, seemed unaffected by the awkward atmosphere when she came back into the kitchen.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said.
‘Yes?’ said Sandrine quickly, grateful for a change of subject.
‘About how to get a letter to Max. We’re not so far from Le Vernet. Wouldn’t it be possible to go there? To the village, at least. See if someone won’t take a letter to him.’
Sandrine glanced at her sister, who was now staring in disbelief at Lucie.
‘For crying out loud, what on earth’s got into everyone? You can’t just turn up at Le Vernet. It’s madness. You’ll be arrested.’
‘But you read all the time of messages being smuggled in, smuggled out of prison camps. Raoul told you, Sandrine, didn’t he, about how the women would stand outside the camp at Argelès and push letters through the wire to their husbands?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted, ‘but that was before the war. Le Vernet’s different.’
‘Why’s it different?’
‘It’s a prison camp,’ Marianne snapped. ‘Not a refugee camp.’
‘But Suzanne told me it’s still under French control,’ Lucie replied. ‘And you yourself told me, Marianne, that the Croix-Rouge are allowed to go in. They deliver food parcels, letters.’
‘It’s impossible.’
Lucie looked at her, then decided not to argue any more. Suzanne opened another bottle of wine and drew Marianne aside. Geneviève and Liesl finished drying up and started to put the dishes away in the cupboard. Lucie hesitated, then came and sat down beside Sandrine.
‘How are you feeling?’ Sandrine asked her.
Lucie pulled a face. ‘So-so. Better in the evenings.’
‘Are you excited about it?’ she said, glancing at Lucie’s flat stomach.
‘It doesn’t feel real yet.’
‘I suppose it doesn’t.’
They sat for a moment longer.
‘It’s not such a stupid idea,’ Lucie said in a low voice. ‘I can’t just sit here doing nothing. Max not knowing. It’s not right. I have to tell him. He has to know he will have a family waiting for him when he’s released.’
Sandrine frowned. ‘It’s true, the camp isn’t entirely sealed off. The village certainly isn’t, at least it wasn’t. Raoul knows people who were held there. But, again,’ she sighed, ‘who knows how much things have changed.’
Lucie looked at her. ‘Will you come with me?’
‘Me, why me?’
‘Obviously Marianne won’t,’ she carried on. ‘She’ll try to stop me, and she’s still cross with me anyway, whatever she says.’ She dropped her voice even lower. ‘I’ve been thinking about it all day. I’m going to have a go, whether you come or not. I’d just rather I wasn’t on my own.’
Sandrine found Lucie’s bravado strangely impressive. Liesl, who’d clearly been eavesdropping on the conversation, now joined them.
‘If I write a letter too, would you take it, Lucie? I know I can’t go, but if I could let Max know I’m all right. That you’re all being so kind.’
‘Hold on,’ Sandrine jumped in. ‘Nothing’s agreed.’
‘Of course I will,’ Lucie said to Liesl.
‘Will you drive?’
‘We’re nearly out of petrol and it will be hard to get any all the way out there. Besides, the car might draw attention. By now, my father’s probably reported it missing.’
‘The train, then. What line serves Le Vernet?’
‘It’s on the Toulouse to Foix line,’ Geneviève said, overhearing the conversation. ‘The station after Pamiers. That section of track wasn’t affected by the storm, though it’s a very small line. Unreliable.’
‘What’s unreliable?’ Marianne asked, catching the tail end of the conversation.
Sandrine didn’t want the argument to blow up again. More than that, she saw how exhausted her sister looked and didn’t want to make things worse.
‘Nothing really,’ she said. ‘We’re just talking things over.’
‘The railway to Le Vernet,’ Lucie said. ‘I’m still thinking about how to take a letter to Max.’
‘It’s a hopeless idea,’ Marianne said wearily. ‘You’ll be arrested long before you get anywhere near the camp.’
‘I agree she can’t just turn up at the gate,’ Sandrine said. ‘But if we go to the village, we could at least find out how other relatives manage to be in contact with their men inside.’
‘There might be a way of paying someone to take the letter in. A guard, perhaps,’ Geneviève said.
‘Perfectly hopeless, Marianne repeated.’
‘I’m prepared to give it a try,’ Sandrine said, keeping her voice calm. ‘At least go to the village, then see.’
‘I don’t mind going too, if that’s helpful,’ said Geneviève.
Marianne shook her head. ‘Nobody’s going anywhere. Don’t you understand anything?’
To Sandrine’s astonishment, she saw there were tears in her sister’s eyes.
‘Hey,’ Suzanne said in her gruff way. ‘It’s all right.’
Without another word, Marianne got up, put her chair under the table, and walked out on to the terrace. The door rattled shut behind her. For a moment, none of the girls moved. The room itself seemed to be holding its breath. Suzanne was on the point of following Marianne, when Sandrine stood up.
‘I’ll go,’ she said.
Marianne was sitting on the wooden seat, looking out at the dusk. Long shadows stretched across the garrigue as the last vestiges of light slipped from the sky.
‘We didn’t mean to upset you,’ Sandrine said, sitting down beside her. ‘We’re only thinking out loud, trying to find a way to help Lucie.’
She tailed off, seeing her sister wasn’t listening. Marianne continued to sit motionless, her hands resting in her lap.
‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ Sandrine said again.
‘I know,’ Marianne said.
‘Lucie’s desperate, that’s the thing. She’ll try to get there on her own if one of us doesn’t go with her.’ She paused. ‘And you and Suzanne, you do things to help other people – strangers – all the time. You take risks. Is this really so different?’
‘We never deliberately put ourselves in harm’s way,’ she said. ‘But it’s not that.’
‘Then what?’
Marianne shook her head, as if no words would be enough. Sandrine couldn’t remember seeing her sister so beaten down before, so unsure. She was always so certain, so self-controlled.
‘What is it, Marianne? Tell me?’
For a moment Marianne didn’t react, then she gave a long, deep sigh.
‘The thing is, I don’t think I can do it any more,’ she said. ‘That’s all. I’m too tired, I’m . . .’ she shrugged. ‘I’m worn out.’
‘Of course you are . . .’
‘I can’t do it any more, Sandrine. Worry about everyone, keep everyone, be responsible for everyone. Make sure that the bills are paid, that we have enough to eat. I’m just worn out and I wish . . .’ She broke off. Sandrine took her hand, but it felt like a dead thing, cold and lifeless. ‘Sometimes I wish I could look away, like other people seem to be able to do. Not feel it’s my job to put things right.’
‘But you’ve always been the one to put everything right,’ Sandrine said gently, ‘even when we were little. Papa always said, didn’t he? You always made everything right.’
‘This situation with Lucie, like this business with Monsieur Baillard, I feel it’s my job to say no. To try to keep you all safe, even though it makes you – Lucie – cross. I do understand why she wants to try to go to Le Vernet, of course I do, and why you want to go with her. But it’s always me that has to tell everyone to be careful. To watch out for you all.’
‘Well then,’ Sandrine said affectionately.
‘I’m frightened all the time, can’t you see it?’
‘Frightened, you?’
‘Terrified. Terrified we’ll be caught, terrified of the knock on the door in the middle of the night when the police come. Then what will happen to you? To Marieta? I can’t do it. Not any more.’
Sandrine hesitated for a moment, then spoke. ‘I can look after myself now,’ she said in a steady voice. ‘I can make my own decisions – mistakes, no doubt. You’ve done enough.’ She paused. ‘I’ll go with Lucie, keep her from getting into trouble. I feel I owe her, you know. For not doing something when Max was arrested. I know you think I’m being silly, but it’s what I feel.’ She paused. ‘We’ll be back before you know it.’
For a moment, Sandrine didn’t think Marianne had properly heard. She put her arm around her sister’s shoulder and drew her close.
‘You don’t have to look after everyone any more.’
Marianne gave a hollow laugh. ‘It’s not as simple as that. I can’t just stop worrying, turn it off like a tap. I’ve had a lifetime of it.’
Sandrine smiled. ‘I know that. But from now on, you’re no longer the big sister and me the baby. We’ll just be sisters. Equals.’
‘Just sisters.’ Marianne looked at Sandrine, then held out her hand. ‘All right, it’s a deal.’
‘Deal.’ Sandrine hesitated. ‘But you won’t give up? You’ll keep doing things, you and Suzanne?’
Marianne sighed. ‘Of course. Someone’s got to.’
The girls sat there a while longer, looking out over the landscape of their shared childhood, the house that had kept them safe for so long. Then, from inside, Suzanne’s laugh and Liesl’s lighter tones, Geneviève talking. Then the slap of cards on the tabletop, and Lucie’s triumphant cry.
‘There!’
Marianne smiled. ‘She’s a funny mixture, Lucie. Tough as old boots in some ways, but so naïve in others. Head in the sand.’
‘Has she always been like that?’
‘Always. She was never the slightest bit interested in the world around her. Before Max came along, it was all films and magazines, Hollywood, the latest releases. Endless discussions of fashion and movie stars. And now a baby on the way.’ Marianne sighed.
‘Do you think it’s wrong?’ Sandrine asked, genuinely interested in what she thought. ‘Marieta does.’
‘Because they’re not married, do you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think they should have been more careful. But wrong, no.’
‘Lucie wanted to get married. It’s not their fault they aren’t.’
‘I know,’ Marianne said quietly. ‘But even if by some miracle Max is released, that won’t change. In the meantime, Lucie can’t go home. She’s got no money. How’s she going to live?’
‘She’ll have to stay here, won’t she?’
Marianne nodded. ‘I can’t see an alternative. She can’t go back to Carcassonne, not now her father’s there.’ She was quiet for a moment, then she turned and looked at Sandrine. ‘You are determined to go to Le Vernet?’
‘Lucie is,’ she replied, ‘and I don’t see how we can let her go alone.’
‘Won’t it interfere with what you’ve agreed with Monsieur Baillard?’
Sandrine hesitated. ‘No. I’m not supposed to do anything until going to Tarascon on Wednesday. I’d rather do something, instead of sitting around waiting and worrying about Raoul or whether the plan will work. Five days. Plenty of time to get to Le Vernet and back.’
Marianne thought for a moment longer. ‘If she’s determined,’ she said, in her more usual, practical voice, ‘tell Lucie not to write explicitly about the baby in the letter. She has to find a way of telling Max without spelling it out, as it were. So the censor doesn’t realise.’
‘Would it matter so much if the censor knows?’
‘This baby will have Jewish blood, Sandrine. If no one knows he – or she – exists, then there’s a chance of the child being safe. Whatever happens to Max.’
Sandrine turned cold. She felt stupid not to have realised for herself.
‘Of course, yes.’
‘And only go to the village,’ Marianne continued. ‘Find someone to take the letter up to the camp. I’ll telephone Carcassonne and see if the Red Cross has been allowed into Le Vernet recently.’
‘Lucie will be really grateful.’
‘She should be,’ Marianne said, with a flicker of her old impatience.
She stood up and smoothed down her skirt. Sandrine stood up too.
‘Do you feel less wretched now?’
Marianne thought for a moment. ‘Oddly, I do.’ She smiled. ‘Come on, let’s join the others.’
Inside the kitchen, the air was thick with tobacco smoke and the gentle scent of a citronelle candle.
On the table, the new bottle of red wine stood half empty. The white china ashtray was patterned with grey ash and white filters with smudges of red lipstick. The game of cards immediately stopped. Everyone looked round.
‘All right?’ asked Suzanne.
Marianne nodded. ‘Yes. Fine now.’
Suzanne held up the bottle. ‘A glass?’
‘Please.’
‘Sandrine?’
‘Just a little.’
Lucie immediately went over to Sandrine, another cigarette between her red-painted nails.
‘Well?’ she said in a whisper.
‘It’s all right. We’ll go,’ Sandrine replied. ‘But to the village, not to the camp itself.’
Lucie sighed with relief. ‘You talked her round, thank you.’
‘No,’ Sandrine said, feeling protective of her sister. ‘No, not at all. Marianne understands how you feel, Lucie. She’s just trying to keep us from getting into hot water.’
‘Well, however you did it, thanks, kid,’ she said, sounding like her old self. ‘I intend to go, one way or the other, but I’d rather have Marianne’s blessing.’
Sandrine put her hand on Lucie’s shoulder. ‘We’ll try to find someone to deliver the letter for you. Whatever happens, there’s no chance of you seeing Max. You accept that?’
‘I know, I know.’
From the expression on Lucie’s face, Sandrine could see she wasn’t listening.
‘Lucie, I’m serious.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I understand.’
‘Just so long as you do.’
Sandrine caught her sister smiling at her, a mixture of amusement and affection on her face. Something else too, regret perhaps. Sandrine smiled too, then raised her glass to the room.
‘Since we’re all here for once,’ she began.
‘Wait!’ Liesl said, seizing her camera. ‘All right, I’m ready.’
‘To us,’ Sandrine gave the toast.
Geneviève, Suzanne and Lucie all raised their glasses. Marianne tilted hers towards Sandrine.
‘To us all,’ Sandrine repeated, as the flash went off. ‘A notre santé!’